Hidden Maps, 2001
Hidden Maps (2000-2001) were created in the midst of the political instability of the second Intifada in spring 2000 which repeatedly confronted me with the meaning of doing art. Looking for some kind of autonomous artistic syntax in my artwork, I was working with plastic sheets I had found in the garbage not far from my studio. The origin and the function of these plastic sheets were totally unknown to me but they were intriguing and mysterious. At first I decided to disrupt the grid of the holes by inserting in them tiny cut outs of my olive landscapes. But later these formalistic concerns bothered me so I concealed roads of Jerusalem’s borderline sewed with red threads in between each sheets. These hidden maps were a secret reminder that reality could not be totally exorcised from art and later these maps became the trigger for my trips to the borders of the city of Jerusalem which triggered in turn the content of the Border Land art works.